Excitebike

[Nester the Lark]

What do you guys think of Excitebike?

I still see this game highly praised as one of the best of the early games on the NES. In fact, it was one of the first games I owned for the system back in the late '80s. I remember enjoying it, to be sure, but I was never really blown away by it. I find it somewhat limited and repetitive, and it's not even really a race. It does have that neat aspect of manipulating your bike after a jump in order to land the right way, and the track editor is fun for a while, but that's about it. I'm a little surprised at how much praise it gets.

I haven't really played much of the sequels, aside from in-store demos. (It's worth noting that World Rally on WiiWare is one of this month's Club Nintendo prizes.)

What are your thoughts? Any Excitebike fans?

[BeamClaws]

Excitebike is a little overrated. It's a novelty, I did play it a bit (on Animal Crossing actually) but as you said, it's not a race. Adding more racers actually just adds ever present obstacles.

I HAVE played variations of the game that made it fun, an example being a clone on the Urbz GBA game that let you customize your bike, set traps and was actually a race.

I don't know about any of the other games in the series though. Excitebike 64, Excite Trucks, they look like they're a little fun but overall it seems to be a novelty thing Nintendo does.

[Fryguy64]

I think the reason for its popularity is simply down to the solid control scheme. It's one of those where you can just take it slow and steady, but there's another level of skill required if you want to win (similar to sports & fighting games today). This kind of skill with games was rare back then. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be the first of its kind.

Of course, it was on NES, so that gave it a huge audience. Nintendo seems to hold a lot of affection for the series internally as well.

And I suppose this is backed up by remakes, such as the WiiWare game, which uses the exact same controls over updated graphics and still feels like a solid and challenging game.

It's a case of: If Excitebike were released today it wouldn't make much of an impact, but it was released 28 years ago and made a much bigger impact. And there's not really been another series like it.

[Da Robot]

Probably one of the reason why EB is so well remembered, is because it was one of the first NES games to have user generated content*.

I played EB earlier this year through Animal Crossing and it was a pretty decent game. Making custom tracks took a little getting use to, but it's pretty funny to place that "massive jump/obsticle piece" and then put more ramps after it, to see all the AI riders crash after it.

And also the solid contol scheme like Fry said, it's nice and simple to get into, but then there's the depth of using the "turbo" option and possibly overheating.


* Mach Rider also had user generated tracks and came out at the same time, but haven't heard many folks talking about it these days compared to EB.


Here's Robot Chicken's Excitebike.




And the reveal/playing of Vs Excitebike at the final round of Penny Arcade/PAX 08 Omegathon. (listen to the crowd cheer at it's reveal at 1:25)




(Start at 3:30 to see the other rounds/winner).

[The Qu]

Excitebike is one of those games that could really benefit from a full fledged update slash remake slash whatever you want to call it. More bikes, more kinds of races, etc.

As it stands, it's a well remembered game that was kind of a one trick pony. But then, what do you expect from an early generation NES game? "One trick ponies" was all that really existed in gaming at the time, and as such, it's dumb to judge it by any other standard.

[8bitretroshit]

You could make your own tracks. Naturally I friggen' loved Excitebike*. Me and my brother spent many hours making impossible shit courses and have each play it, good times good times. It's just too bad the save option didn't really work so I'd spend so much time making a badass track, but wouldn't be able to show if off days or even hours later.

Yeah it wasn't an actual race, but it was a NES game. I was amazed there were any other racers at all. I also remember hating the blue racer a lot... was he more aggressive than the other 2? Either way I made it a point to have him eat dirt any chance possible


* I friggen' loved Wrecking Crew too, but Mach Rider... the game itself was just too much of a pain I guess. I'd use the track editor to make levels that only exist out of one line so I wouldn't get instant game overs whenever the ice levels started popping up

[nocturnal YL]

Excitebike? Once I played the WiiWare version, I wasn't really interested in the others anymore.

I did play the earlier games before I played the WiiWare one, but those didn't really appeal to me as I put much emphasis in game music (which this game lacks). and the other games are too difficult (Track 5 is near impossible to beat for me).

[Dull Boy Jack]

Apr 3, 2012 7:45:01 GMT -5 The Qu said:

Excitebike is one of those games that could really benefit from a full fledged update slash remake slash whatever you want to call it. More bikes, more kinds of races, etc.

As it stands, it's a well remembered game that was kind of a one trick pony. But then, what do you expect from an early generation NES game? "One trick ponies" was all that really existed in gaming at the time, and as such, it's dumb to judge it by any other standard.

Isn't that exactly what Excitebike: World Rally is? The exact same 2D racing style, more bikes, more tracks, the track editor and an online mode. World Rally probably suffers because of this since it shows how limited gameplay whys Excitebike is.

[Beau Skunk]

Excitebike was among my first games as a kid. (I also hear it was one of the first side-scrolling games Shigeru Miyamoto made.) So I have a bit of nostalgic fondness for it. I also loved the "Excitebike World Rally" remake, wich was a pretty slightly improved version.

I admit, some things about it hasn't aged well, and it is a bit simplistic, but as FryGuy said that simplicity compared to some other more complicated racing games is what makes it so appealing to some. Also the interesting aspect of tilting the bike during jumps added some depth to it, and made it a bit more advanced for it's day. Trying to line the bike up with the landing, with the ground, or an obsticle was a nice fun challenge in it itself.

Also, the ability to create your own levels was pretty advanced for an NES game back then, wich is another reason it's considered such a classic. (You can even save some of the custom levels in the Virtual Console & "3D Classics" versions, wich is nice.)

[Nester the Lark]

Bump!

James Rolf and Mike Matei play Excitebike:



Going back to my original post, I wonder if I would find the game more compelling if it had more of a goal to it. Like I said, it's not really a race, and there's no real satisfaction to getting fast times. There's no other scoring system, either, so you can't play for high score. I haven't played the game in years, but I seem to remember that it doesn't get very difficult, either. But if it provided more of a challenge and gave me something to reach for, I might enjoy it more.

I don't mean to rag on Excitebike though. I'm not saying it's undeserving of the praise it gets. I was just trying to understand why it's singled out among other early NES games.

[Leon]

World Rally for WiiWare is pretty much exactly what you described.